« Vendre Moderne » : Publicité et consommation de mode et du corps dans les cathédrales de commerce au tournant du xxe siècle (1890-1914)

Résumé 0

The period following the Second World War is seen as a period of the explosion of the theories of the consumer society, focusing in particular on publicity and its harmful effect on the needs of consumers. The Trente Glorieuses (the 30 years following the war) mark the thoughts on “the art of modern selling” and the empirical studies of consumers (Jean-François Bernard). Concomitantly numerous French theories of fashion emerge drawing their inspiration from the semiotic approach of the famous writings of Barthes, Baudrillard and Burgelin. These two approaches join together around the question of the value of fashion, of the system of ephemeral values of clothing, a system created and constructed especially through publicity. However, this idea is not new. At the turn of the 20th century, with the explosion of department stores, and the implementation of their new sales strategies, we were able to observe that this system of publicity as creator of abstract values was already institutionalized and theorized in/by/for the commercial cathedrals. The art of modern selling, when artistic modernity is put in motion for economic value, does not only have its roots in the post-war period. This article seeks to explore how these department stores developed their strategies for selling, labeling and visually presenting their products in a seductive manner in order to create a new system of values, what signs/values their contemporaries saw, understood, notably by mentioning the experiences of these individuals, as they were dreamt by the industrialists, and the professionals of publicity and of fashion.